Yes, it really is important. I don't mean that in the sense that it's dehumanizing to replace a human being with a number and then round up or down, but in the

Yes, it really is important. I don't mean that in the sense that it's dehumanizing to replace a human being with a number and then round up or down, but in the sense of determining things like: are civilian casualties caused by Allied Forces' aerial strikes rising or falling over the years? I'll argue that this IS spending effort on the living. UN report is a credible figure, which CENTCOM can't ignore, and that hopefully will result in strategy or tactics change that result in fewer civilian casualties. Take a look at this infographic, and you'll hopefully spot 2011 in it at once on the top/bottom graphs: http://projects.voanews.com/aircraft-weapons-released-in-afghanistan-2010-to-2015/ http://projects.voanews.com/aircraft-weapons-released-in-afg... It's 2010 that appears like it has greater number of aerial strikes, but that's not the case. Yes, it has some big spikes, but it's actually 2011 that cumulatively has more strikes. Below is the corresponding number of civilian victims of aerial strikes as determined by the UN. The bottom numbers, the casualty numbers, are going down after 2011. Note that the last "15" number came from a preliminary UN report and will be updated soon. Back to the person-hours you mentioned. Was it worth it to keep counting 2011 statistics, four-five years later? I think yes, because otherwise it's really easy for CENTCOM or anyone else to either miss the correct numbers, or cherry-pick them. If anyone had only cited the 2011 UNAMA report (which was initially reported as 305), it would imply that number of casualties remained the same instead of rising sharply like it did.